


is it god or is it me?

by adozendays



Series: song of songs [2]
Category: Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Catholic Character, Catholicism, F/M, Feelings Realization, Nuns, Pre-Relationship, Prequel, kind of, maybe could also be an interquel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26411455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adozendays/pseuds/adozendays
Summary: You aren't really a good person, but god damn you make bad look awesome. (no one could steer me right, but mama tried.)A novitiate begins to fall for a man she shouldn’t even be friends with, much less come to adore with every atom of her being
Relationships: Herbert West/Reader
Series: song of songs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1919698
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	is it god or is it me?

**Author's Note:**

> A tumblr prompt request fill: You aren't really a good person, but god damn, you make bad look awesome. (no one could steer me right, but mama tried.) + old!Herbert (young Herb is cool too)

You’re seventeen years old and your mother is cleaning the blood from your nose when you learn about her fear of you being in the dark. 

“I worry about you, _mija_ ,” she sighs. There was another fight at school. You had come home from detention with blood still on your face and fresh wounds on your knuckles. At least you had won this time and your nose wasn’t broken. That’s pretty good when you’re a scrappy little nobody who isn’t going anywhere in life. Who won’t be anything special, which is why you get into fights as often as you do.

“Why, mama? It’s just a fight.” You don’t want to tell her what drives your anger because she’ll just feel guilt. It’s useless to tell her that she should have stopped at you because it still would have been turned out this way. And you love your siblings too much to wish that most of them never existed.

“You’re drawn to certain things. I don’t want you to wind up in a dark place.”

Of course, you tell your mother that you’re going to stay in the light.

\--

When you’re twenty, you join the local order, Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows. It’s a relief to your mother because that means you’re safe from the dark. You’re in God’s light now, forever.

Two years and some change into your time at the convent, you start your work at the Arkham State Pen and you meet Herbert West and dance merrily away from that light.

That first day of work, it’s just the two of you and he’s helping you get things out of the storage closet in the back of the church. It’s a small, cramped space that makes both of you feel like giants. As the two of you try and get the things down from the shelves, your bodies wind up pressed together for a few moments.

That night, you find yourself in bed, your hand between your legs as you feverishly think of Herbert’s eyes, that odd, pink mouth of him and how his strong hands had shot out and steadied you when you had almost fallen over.

You think of him pinning you against the stained glass window, or laying you across the altar. Those hands gripping your thighs as he pushes them apart. Of him calling you ‘his’ as he enters you.

When you come, it’s harder than you ever have before and you need to use your other hand to cover your mouth so you don’t scream and alert the other sisters.

This is wrong, but it feels so right.

(That night , as he lay awake in his cell, Herbert thinks of you too. he takes himself in hand and imagines that flicker of fire in your eyes, your smirk, your hand around him and he loses control for a few moments, just long enough to spend himself and as he washes away evidence of that moment, he feels things he thought himself to be above.)

\--

Within a few days, you know who he is.

Herbert West, the Arkham Butcher. You don’t quite remember the news coverage, you were too absorbed in your own life to really pay attention to something that hadn’t really concerned you. 

Shockingly, he tells you his story freely. The next time you’re at the prison, the two of you finish early and rather than send him back to his cell, you ask if he wants to tell you how he wound up here. Herbert nods and starts with how he found himself in Switzerland, because you should know everything about how he wound up here.

It’s a horrifying story and he hints at things that the press didn’t cover and you ask him to tell you more. It’s the most awful thing you have ever heard, but you need to hear everything. It’s compelling, it’s wicked, it’s ungodly, but that just draws you in more.

Herbert’s passion for science, even the profane version that he had practiced all those years ago, comes through in his voice. He comes alive in a way that you’ve never seen anyone do before and you’ve literally seen people who are supposed to be having a religious experience.

Later, you will realize that this was your downfall. That Herbert pulled you into his darkness with only some words. No promises, not even a touch.

(Later on, Herbert will realize that you had pulled him into your light that day. He had never been one to share and yet, he had sat there with you and told you his story and when you had looked at him with those doe eyes, he had this desire to never stop looking at or talking to you.)

(both of you were doomed from the start and both of you would try and try but ultimately fail and wind up trapped in that place between the dark and light)

(and that’s more than okay)


End file.
